As Tunisia prepares to launch its 2026–2030 Development Plan, experts are calling for reforms to ensure its effective implementation. Faisal Derbel, President of the Tunisian Center for Corporate Governance (CTGE) at the IACE, said success will depend not only on technical planning but also on the country’s ability to establish governance based on performance, accountability, and transparency.
Speaking at a roundtable presenting a new IACE study titled “Assessment of Governance and Transparency Practices in Public Investment Projects in Tunisia,” Derbel highlighted an analysis of three major public investment projects:
The Sfax–Gabès motorway (155 km, costing 217 million dinars);
An ONAS program to rehabilitate 19 wastewater treatment plants and 130 pumping stations (597 million dinars);
Phase 1 of the Rapid Rail Network (RFR), covering Lines D and E (1.2 billion dinars).
The comparative analysis found that the shortcomings identified were not isolated failures specific to individual sectors, but rather reflected “a public investment governance system suffering from common and recurring structural weaknesses.”
According to the study, all three projects followed a similar pattern: sound strategic foundations and legitimate public objectives that were not adequately supported by rigorous project preparation, effective institutional coordination, financial transparency and performance monitoring. The result has consistently been prolonged delays, cost overruns with limited transparency, delayed delivery of public value, and weak accountability to citizens, Parliament, and financial partners.
The study argues that these findings should not lead to pessimism but instead call for targeted, realistic, and pragmatic reforms of Tunisia’s public investment cycle.
It identifies three urgent cross-cutting priorities:
Strengthening project readiness before any financial commitment by ensuring feasibility studies, land clearances, and implementation conditions are fully completed before contracts are awarded;
Establishing systematic financial and contractual transparency through regularly updated and publicly accessible dashboards detailing project costs and contract amendments;
Building a culture of ex-post evaluation and institutional learning by turning challenges such as contract terminations, regulatory obstacles, and public opposition into lessons for future projects.
The IACE noted that Tunisia possesses significant strengths, including technically capable public institutions, strong partnerships with demanding international donors and an increasingly vigilant civil society monitoring public spending. However, these assets will only deliver their full potential if public investment governance is viewed not as an administrative burden but as a strategic tool for development. Only then, it said, can major infrastructure projects become tangible drivers of growth instead of symbols of chronic delays.
101.8 billion dinars at stake
Derbel stressed that the study comes at a crucial time as Tunisia prepares to implement its 2026–2030 Development Plan.
The plan includes a portfolio of around 21,100 public projects and programs, representing 101.8 billion dinars in total investment. Of this amount:
43.7% is allocated to infrastructure and services;
27.5% to public facilities and collective infrastructure.
Financing is expected to come from:
61% from the state budget;
30% from public enterprises and institutions;
9% through public-private partnerships (PPPs).
To avoid repeating past mistakes, Derbel called for a fundamental shift in approach, moving from a “culture of means” to a “culture of results,” and from focusing on building infrastructure to creating public value.
He concluded that public investment remains a cornerstone of Tunisia’s economic and social development, provided that governance effectively covers the entire project life cycle, from planning and implementation to final evaluation.
